Eyewitness To Jesus? The Gospel Authors

A 'minor religious figure'? According to the gospels, Jesus performed mutliple startling miracles (raising the dead, healing the sick, etc.), attracted a following so great that five thousand people were willing to treck for miles on the off-chance he might speak without even so much as preparing themselves a meal and had people celebrating in the streets as he entered Jerusalem.Five thousand might not be that much now but back then it was a good sized army. To suggest that the Jesus of the bible is a 'minor religious figure' not worthy of note is absurd in the extreme.

Ifen,If you read the message I was replying to you will see that Sfs was responding to someone else's claim that the lack of evidence about Jesus was strong evidence against the historical validity of the Gospels. If the Gospels are historical then Jesus is not a 'minor religious figure' so defending a claim that they are by claiming so is self defeating.I too have no problem with the idea that the Jesus myth is based around a minor religious figure of the time.Cheers,Jack

I'd say the adoption by Constantine is the key point, if there be such a thing, but I won't claim to have the historical knowledge to make that a solid judgement.